Well, I just got my 8th Kirby! A friend said they had it and didnt want it anymore, so I said I would take it. Its a Classic 1-CR with an Omega bag.
Only came with the hose, but thats fixable- I can put on a Sanitronic nozzle and call it good until I get the 1-CR nozzle. In fact, the first thing I thought when I saw it was, "I can make a FrankenKirby!"
Its prettty dusty, but with a little TLC Im sure I can make it look brand new.
PS Sorry for the bad picture quality.
VW
Post# 136771 , Reply# 1   5/16/2011 at 23:35 (4,953 days old) by Red_October ()  
In the automotive world we have something called a Hollander's Interchange manual. It tells you what parts, from what car, work on another car. It doesn't care about things like different manufacturers (since lots of car parts are common across even cars from different countries). Since a certain subsystem, from a transmission to the module from the automatic climate control, can be sourced from a common place, even on two completely different cars (Say a 70s Chrysler and an 80s Mercedes).
This makes me wonder, what parts from what Kirbys, will work on another? I have several that are all more or less the same machine (The type that I think started with the Classic and ended with the Heritage II? Or was it the legend?) but they all have safety switches in subtly different locations, which prevents the immediate mate-up of parts from a different model. Or am I on the wrong track here, do you just disable the safety switch to enable the mate-up of whatever part you happen to have handy (since I can think of no fewer than five things off the top of my head that mate to the main motor of the Kirby). I'm probably over-analysing this but I'm on an internet forum devoted to household appliances, so I'm not worried :)
The Dual Sanitronics 50 & 80 and the Classic share the same safety switch, so they can swap nozzles, the Omega to Tradition have a different switch, meaning only those three can exchange parts, the Heritage to LegendII again have their own switch which onky works with that series, however, the Heritage (and possibly early HeritageII) nozzles have also got the casting to operate the Omega to Trad safety switch, so that can be used on older Kirbys, but not the other way round... :)
Other parts can be easily swapped around between older 500 series and the LegendII, so you could make a LegendII that looks like a 500 series if you wanted to... :)